What’s the most popular fruit in the United States? It’s eaten in more quantities than oranges and apples put together. It’s a fruit so beloved it’s sent here from thousands of miles away.

Give up? It’s the banana.

“The banana is by far the most popular fruit worldwide.We consume about 25 pounds of bananas per person per year,” explains Dan Koeppel, author of Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World. “It’s the cheapest fruit in the supermarket even though it’s very perishable and imported great distances.” Also, the banana has been around for a very long time. “People have been growing bananas for about 10,000 years,” adds Koeppel, “which puts us right back in the dawn of organized agriculture. It’s the oldest cultivated fruit.”

The banana can also be well paired in interesting combinations. There’s bananas foster, the famous New Orleans recipe. Banana vodka. How about Jufran Hot Banana Ketchup? Or ever try peanut butter and bananas? “It’s an amazing combination,” says Lee Zalben, president and founder of Peanut Butter & Co. “Sweet, creamy bananas are a great foil for rich, savory peanut butter.” The beloved combination was recently taken one step further when Peanut Butter & Co. and Turkey Hill joined forces to create a limited batch all-natural Banana Peanut Butter Ice Cream, featuring banana-flavored ice cream swirled with Peanut Butter & Co.’s Smooth Operator peanut butter.

And today being National Banana Lovers day, Koeppel shared some cool facts about America’s beloved fruit.

Bananas were never really heard of until 1880. However, by 1910, they were so popular that cities had a problem disposing of used banana peels. Back then, there was no urban sanitation and people were literally slipping on banana peels and hurting themselves. In fact, in 1910, the City of St. Louis had an ordinance specifically prohibiting people from throwing banana peels on the ground. And for much of the early 1900s, one of the suggested Boy Scout manual good deeds of the day was to pick up banana peels from the street.

Sanitation departments like the one in New York City were organized partly to combat the plague of banana peels littering the streets. Those sanitation departments were so successful that the idea of slipping on the banana peel actually became a gag. That’s how it became a joke in the early movies.

Today, bananas are so popular due to the entrepreneurial drive of the early banana barons who founded a company in the 1880s called United Fruit (which is now Chiquita.) When they introduced the banana, Americans generally didn’t know what a banana was and had to be taught how to peel and determine if they were ripe. Also, to get people to try the fruit, the company included coupons for free milk and cornflakes with bananas. Hence, the concept of bananas with milk and cornflakes was invented to get Americans to eat this unfamiliar fruit.

There are more than 1,000 varieties of amazing and delicious bananas—most of them are in Africa and Asia. But in the United States, we only eat one called the Cavendish. The Cavendish is a more bland banana compared to those in India where 600 banana varieties are grown. Perhaps on a future Banana Lovers Day, we’ll be able to enjoy more banana varieties.

The Cavendish, the banana we currently eat, is not the original breed that was introduced into the United States. That breed was called the Gros Michel, but was eradicated by a fungus. “Yes, We Have No Bananas,” the famous song from the 1920s, may be related to that banana shortage.

Two towns in the United States claim to have invented the banana split, and they’ve been fighting over it for 100 years. Latrobe, Pennsylvania lays claim to the dish. (David Strickler, a 23-year-old druggist apprentice there, was said to have created the first banana split sundae at Tassel Pharmacy in 1904 for students who attended St. Vincent College nearby.) However, the town of Wilmington, Ohio says the banana split is their baby. In 1907, Ernest R. Hazard, owner of The Café, held a contest with his employees looking for the best new dessert recipe. Someone came up with a peeled and sliced banana topped with three scoops of ice cream, chocolate syrup, strawberry jam, pineapple bits, chopped nuts, whipped cream, and cherries.

Stores like Trader Joe’s have frozen bananas imported from Thailand. These bananas are extra-sweet when defrosted and really tasty for making pies, and puddings.

Up through the 1950s, Chiquita released banana cookbooks full of interesting and sometimes odd recipes. Making a big push to get people to eat bananas with every meal, they tried to position the banana as both a sweet fruit and a vegetable, like a potato. You could find recipes for ham banana rolls with cheese sauce, bananas with mint jelly, and banana soup.

The number one banana dish in the world is a Ugandan mashed banana dish called matooke, usually eaten with a sauce made from ground peanut, vegetables, or some type of meat. It’s considered comfort food.

Bananas don’t grow on trees. (Trees have bark and the banana plant doesn’t have bark.) The banana plant is actually the world’s largest herb and closely related to vanilla and ginger.

And bananas, like apples and watermelons, can float in water. Who knew!